View this post on the web at [link removed]

The railcar bucked again, and pain flared down the right side of my back, so I clicked the transmit button on my handheld radio and asked the engineer to stop so I could walk off a stinger. 
I was on point, riding on the side ladder of a grain car at the tail end of 110 empties we were shoving into industry tracks at a North Dakota grain elevator. The car I was riding had just rolled over a crossing, so I stood a couple rungs up from the bottom stirrup as required by the rules.
I waited a beat after coming to a stop, reached one steel-toed boot down for the next rung, and the car jerked ahead. The ladder was yanked from my grip and I spun off the car like a bug at the end of a snapped towel. I landed face down in the rocky ballast beside the tracks, fortunate that it was cushioned by a couple inches of snow.
As I lay still in the snow for a minute, the initial generalized pain became more specific. Left side: shoulder achy, but not too bad; glove missing and pain on the side of my hand as if I had delivered an ill-conceived karate chop to an unyielding object, like the metal ladder on the side of a railcar. Right side: painful spot on the bone on the outside of my forearm but probably not broken, same for my shin.
I got up and collected my safety glasses, radio, lantern, and missing glove from the snow. A mushy bulge marked the sore spot on my forearm. My pants were intact but my shin was bleeding under them. I climbed back onto the grain car, noted some soreness in my ribs, and called the engineer, “Conductor on point, back forty cars to a stop.” There was no way I was saying anything about my injuries over the radio. I had already resigned—just one day to go—and I would not let anything extend my dealings with the company, even if it meant time off with pay.
A few months earlier, I had taken the last of my three days of paid time off (PTO) for the year to attend the Burdick Dinner in Fargo, where Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota was the guest speaker. The preceding evening, I was called at 9 p.m. for an 11 p.m. train. I wasn’t home to start my PTO day until almost noon, which meant my wife got to drive the four hours to Fargo while I tried to sleep in the passenger seat.
The dinner was great. I knew almost nothing about Governor Walz until I met him and learned that he was a fellow veteran and high school teacher. He took the stage, and a few minutes into his speech I looked at my wife and said, “This is how we should be talking.” I was still thinking about it when we pulled into our driveway at one o’clock in the morning and the company called me for a 3 a.m. train.
Five months before the Burdick Dinner, I spent my first two PTO days on Memorial Day and the day after so I could deliver the main speech at our local Memorial Day ceremony and then celebrate the day with friends and family. Crew scheduling called me at 4 p.m. Sunday, the day before Memorial Day, for a 6 p.m. train. I got home at six o’clock in the morning, four hours before I was set to don my Marine Corps dress blue uniform and speak to a large group of people, many of whom had heard me speak there the year before and—I like to believe—had high expectations. 
A common saying at the railroad is that they pay you for the inconvenience. It is inconvenient to never be sure when you will be called to work. It is inconvenient to work through the morning of your paid day off. It is inconvenient that management seems to spend more time trying to catch you doing something wrong than working to make your job easier. It is inconvenient that consolidation in the industry has led to companies who see shareholders as the only stakeholders and who have no time for small customers like the grain elevators in my hometown. 
Consolidation and shareholder supremacy are ubiquitous in our economy. The resulting lack of competition, upward redistribution of wealth, and disregard for employees and small businesses helps explain the surging popularity of labor unions despite decades of concerted efforts to demonize them. Workers know, and the general public is learning, that labor unions are the surest path to a good-paying job without a college degree. They are the only ones who have your back when corporate America asks you to trade your time, health, and happiness for the lowest wage possible.
Labor unions are the reason the crew manning your family’s flight isn’t operating on the FAA’s meager minimum rest requirements. Without unions, the nearly two-mile-long train that derailed in New Palestine, Ohio or the one blocking your local crossing would be manned by just one person instead of two. Unions keep job creep and expanding requirements from eating into teachers’ prep time and their sanity at a time when they already feel under attack by politically motivated loudmouths and armchair educators. 
I know this because I have been in that airline cockpit, that freight-rail locomotive, and that classroom. In each of those jobs, I considered myself a licensed professional and mostly loved the work but also suffered the inconvenience, frustration, and exhaustion that can accompany it. 
I know what it is like to work without a union. I have seen the detectors put away so harmful substances in the air wouldn’t slow down the work. I prefer the safer, unionized workplace.
In Congress, I would look out for workers, unionized or not. Where labor resides, on the front lines of the economy, is where innovation happens every day. It is where the capital is created. I wish the Americans working there a happy Labor Day and hope they feel appreciated, in some way, every day. 
With the U.S. House seat open, the race for North Dakota’s sole congressional district has never been more competitive.
Trygve Hammer is a Navy and Marine Corps veteran, a former public school teacher, and a freight rail conductor. He was appointed to the Naval Academy from the fleet and served as a Marine helicopter pilot, forward air controller, and infantry officer.
From bunking down in oilfield camps to engaging uninterested teenagers in the classroom, Trygve’s career has been a tour of duty in the trenches of American life. Trygve’s commitment to public service is unwavering. He lives by the ethos “Officers Eat Last” and is ready to serve as North Dakota’s next Congressman, putting the people's needs first.

Unsubscribe [link removed]?